The process of photolithography, which is one of the processes for manufacturing a microdevice such as a semiconductor device and a liquid crystal display device, uses an exposure apparatus that projects the image of a pattern formed on a mask onto a photosensitive substrate. This exposure apparatus comprises a mask stage that supports a mask as well as a substrate stage that supports a substrate, and projects an image of the pattern of the mask onto the substrate through a projection optical system while successively moving the mask stage and the substrate stage. In addition, there are exposure apparatuses that are designed, for example, to improve throughput by providing two independently moveable stages on the image plane side of the projection optical system. In microdevice fabrication, there is a demand to increase the fineness of the patterns formed on substrates in order to increase device density. To meet this demand, it is preferable to further increase the resolution of exposure apparatuses. As one means to achieve this increase in resolution, an immersion exposure apparatus has been proposed, as disclosed in Patent Document 1 below, that forms a liquid immersion region by filling a liquid between the projection optical system and the substrate, and performs an exposure process through the liquid of that liquid immersion region.
Patent Document 1: PCT International Publication No. WO 99/49504